Tag Archives: China

With concerns about privacy and foreign government spying being in the forefront lately, do smartphones from Chinese manufacturer Lenovo make sense for the U.S. market? Chinese manufacturers have been accused of providing spy technology instead of communications technology in the past, and China has been busy infiltrating our businesses and government agencies to obtain valuable Intellectual Property and government secrets.

Lenovo said on Tuesday that it was in talks over a smartphone venture, without naming its potential partner, while a source familiar with the situation said NEC and Lenovo had moved into detailed discussions on a joint venture although nothing had been finalized.

NEC has been in talks with Lenovo since early this year on a possible sale or tie-up involving its mobile unit, according to media reports and a source familiar with the discussions.

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I’ve posted Mary Meeker’s presentations before, and I have spent hours studying them. Mary’s a technologist who turned investor and has been researching Internet trends for years to help her own pocketbook. Lately, she’s been sharing much of her research with us.

This time, she’s bullish on wearable/everywhere computing, drones for business, scannables (QR codes) and has noted a 9x increase in shared content online, much of it coming from our mobile world.

China’s initial military intent seems to be regional. ”China has made less progress on capabilities that extend global reach or power projection,” the report, released Wednesday, reads. “Outside of peacetime counter-piracy missions, for example, China’s Navy has little operational experience beyond regional waters.”

“Although this alone is a serious concern,” the report says, “the accesses and skills required for these intrusions are similar to those necessary to conduct computer network attacks.” It carefully parses Chinese official writings to highlight a growing importance of cyber — far more than the 2010 version did.

“It’s no secret that cyber is a realm where deeper engagement between the United States and China — so that we can work on common rules of the road and a common way forward — is necessary,” Schiffer said.

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The US has a problem with cyber attacks, and those attacks seem to be originating from China. Or maybe Russia. Or… Well, they are a problem.

McAfee has said that hundreds of servers have been attacked by what has to be described as professional hackers who appear to be looking for ways to get at secrets. From government weapons systems and our diplomatic papers through the Associated Press and computer programs from companies like Google. On top of that, they’re looking for financial information from just about everybody. And it keeps getting worse.

Don’t think that they’re not interested in your, or your company. These hackers are quite interested in finding information which they can provide to your oversees competitors just as much as they’d like your bank account information. Most people here in the US don’t consider that, due to the fact that there are no Intellectual Property rights in China and the fact that the Chinese government runs the entire economy, that they are very likely behind these exploits in an attempt to give their People’s Liberation Army every manufacturing advantage possible.

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China became the world’s largest energy consumer in 2010 overtaking the USA during a year which saw the rebound in the global economy drive consumption higher and at a rate not seen since the aftermath of the 1973 oil price shocks.

Demand for all forms of energy grew strongly in 2010 and increases in fossil fuel consumption suggest that global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy use rose at their fastest rate since 1969.
The growth in energy consumption was broad-based, with both mature OECD economies and non-OECD countries growing at above-average rates.

The figures come from today’s publication of the 60th annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy, the longest-running, consistent set of objective, global energy data used by business, academics, and governments to inform policy and decision making.

“There were both structural and cyclical factors at work,” said Bob Dudley, BP Chief Executive. “The cyclical factor is reflected in the fact that industrial production rebounded very sharply as the world recovered from the global downturn. Structurally, the increase reflects the continuing rapid economic growth in the developing world.

“I was in China a couple of weeks ago and I came away with a very clear sense of how rigorously China is thinking about these issues. Growth is by no means the only game in town. They want to maintain social cohesion and they want to make their growth more sustainable. In sum, they are worried about energy security and climate change – just as we are.”

To address these concerns, “we can look to the markets, policy tools, technology advances and not least to the growth of renewable energies to allay these worries,” said Dudley.

“This year, we have seen that the global energy markets are resilient. In the face of significant disruptions to the world’s energy system in Japan and Libya, demand continues to be satisfied. Markets work and markets work best when they are open and transparent.”